Trip to the Samaritan Inn

Before I begin writing, I humbly ask for your patience as this is my first time, er, blogging. But, straight to the trip. Last Saturday afternoon, I met Karen, Tano, and Emma, a fellow club member, at Healy Gates at around 3:25. We headed to the Samaritan Inn, located just North of the main restaurant street in Adams-Morgan, by car (much thanks to Emma!) We arrived at about 3:45 and were greeted at the entrance to the Inn by Juan, an employee, who guided us through the facility.

So, what exactly is the Inn, and why were we cooking there? The former of these two questions I knew a basic answer to before our trip, and the latter, I believe we will continue to uncover its answers daily. Before our trip, I knew the Inn as basically a half-way house for homeless and drug-addicted men and women. But, at the Samaritan Inn, I learned that the specific group of people we were cooking for were in the Intensive Recovery Program, a 28 day, live-in program. There are also two other programs run by the Inn, Transitional Living at the Inns and Service-Enriched Housing Communities; hopefully, I will learn more about these in the future. I will get back to the latter question, why we were cooking for them, later on.

Our dinner menu was chili, fries, tossed salad, corn bread, and warm chocolate cookies with vanilla ice cream for dessert. After acquainting ourselves with the kitchen, we went straight to the cooking (check out our pics!) Karen and Tano were all about the chili and fries, I, the corn bread, and Emma took care of the salad, and just about everything else. We sat in a warm kitchen, and a bit in the hallway to cool down, as the food cooked. Then, after everything was prepared, we loaded all the food onto a rolling cart and headed upstairs to serve it.

Before our group dug into the food, we gathered with the group for prayer. We soon donned our servers’ gloves and got ready, standing behind a buffet to serve portions of the food. Our job serving was primarily to allot equal portions to all the members of the small community. We served about twenty-five people, not including ourselves, who sat along four rectangular tables. After everyone was served, we helped ourselves and joined them in eating, and chatting, getting to know our new acquaintances. The feedback, from the resident, about the meal seemed quite positive. We finished off the meal with warm chocolate chip cookies, served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup- yum!

At the end of the meal, we headed back to school, and were back by the front gates at 6:00.

Since I cannot leave any loose ends, I must return to the question of why we were cooking for these people. The simple answer is to lend a hand to others. The more complex answer will hopefully continue to unfold as Cordon Bleu and Grey continues to build a relationship with the Samaritan Inn and its residents.

Pre Dip Ball meal

Last Friday, before Dip Ball, Karen and I went out to dinner at this very nice Italian Restaurant in Foggy Bottom, Teatro Goldoni. Although there is live music, the atmosphere is really relaxed. The place itself is set up well too, with very open table seating in the middle, surrounded by elevated booths. We got to sit in one of the booths.

The meal itself was quite great, but don’t expect any of your traditional Italian food here. Teatro Goldoni specializes in the food from Venice, and its surrounding region Veneto. The menu is very diverse and can really satisfy any of your food yearnings. To start I had my usual foie gras, but this time it came with sweet almond bread and a pear confit and was cooked in a sweet red wine and cherry sauce. Totally honest, loved the idea in concept, it tasted very interesting, but kindof not what I was expecting. Karen instead got a green lentil soup with homemade lamb sausage, and that was quite good, with the lamb really giving a good flavor to the soup. It did taste a bit more Middle Eastern than you would usually expect though.

For starters we both had pasta, actually stuffed pasta. I had large tortelli stuffed with chestnuts and venison, in a butter rosemary, and it was truly incredible. The strong flavor of the meat was balanced by the mild but encompassing touch of butter. Whenever I see “unusual meats” on menus I go straight for them, and in this case it was a success. What Karen got was a bit different, it was pasta purses stuffed with braised beef and montasio cheese, which is kindof like gruyere or fontina (i.e. very heavy) covered in a mushroom wine sauce. Now, we agreed that they were good, and fitting for the weather since it happened to be snowing outside, but the 5 they bring are too much! Maybe you notice that I do by and large eat at least half of her food.

To close we had a rack of veal, topped with a leek and mushroom ragù and with fingerling potatoes. Now, this meat was incredibly tender and all in all spectacular. The waiter even brought me a complementary cup of red wine to match with the meal, ( a really strong Primitvo, a really expensive wine) on the house. More on our waiter later. We were a bit remiss in our ordering because being a Venetian restaurant, the place specializes particularly on fish, but I gave up meat and cheese for lent, but since I am Italian, Dip Ball happened to fall on St. Joseph’s day, which is a day exception for lax catholics like myself, so I got as much meat as I could. But, for those who love fish, there are all sorts of super fresh fishes on the menu, many of which you can dictate how to have made for you. There is also a whole section of the menu “Friggitoria”, which roughly translates to friery, where you can order all sorts of seafood, NOT just calamari, made to order fried. Chocolate pappardelle even find themselves on the menu, as a pasta dish, to show how creative the chef really is.

So, our waiter turned out to be great, though at first we were worried he was crazy. We ordered a bottle of wine a Pinot Grigio + Sauvignon Blanc mix, (Karen doesn’t like reds :( ) and when he brought the bottle he asked “I don’t need to see ID right?”, which caught me quite off guard, both of us are under 21, and then proceeded to serve us. Not only did he do us that favor, but he also brought us a desert on the house, tiramisù, which for once was only average. If you want real good tiramisu, which somehow has stuck as the quintessential Italian dessert, don’t know how!! And don’t get me started on canolis…. Go to Café Milano!! In closing our waiter also brought us limoncello, an Italian cordial that is basically a sweet lemon liqueur made from grappa, which I personally love.

The final tag was a bit pricey, about $200, so the place is not for any casual night. But, if you don’t order as much, or go for lunch you can really save and still have a great meal. All in all, I give this place 4 1/2 stars out of 5, for being incredibly solid in all regards, but not innovative enough and a bit overpriced ( I am still a college student after all…)

-Tano

First Recipes

Now after all those reviews I wanted to get the other aspect of the club started, recipes. So I thought I would start from the two dips we had today at our meeting. Both are pretty simple and easy to make and all the ingredients can be purchased at Safeway.

So here they are:

Spinach Artichoke Dip

1 pkg. frozen spinach thawed (10-12 oz)
1 jar marinated artichokes, (8 oz) chopped
8 oz. Philadelphia Cream cheese
8 oz. Sour cream
2 cups shredded Parmesan cheese
8 oz. shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 onion finely chopped
1 stick butter
red pepper flakes to taste
(you can substitute lite cream/fat free cream cheese, cheeses and sour cream to try to keep the calorie count low as we did)

1) Melt the stick of butter in a medium saucepan at medium/high heat
2) Sauté the onion on medium heat until it becomes translucent, keep stirring (about 8 minutes)
3) Put the heat on low and add in the spinach, mixing and blending it well
4) Repeat Step 3 with the cream cheese, sour cream, Parmesan cheese and artichokes in that order
5) Sprinkle with red pepper to taste and season with salt
6) Before serving transfer to a medium sized pyrex or other baking dish and cover with Monterey Jack cheese
7) Turn oven on 300 degrees Fahrenheit
8) Put pyrex in the oven until top layer of cheese begins to brown (approximately 20 minutes)
9) Remove, let it sit to cool and serve with bread

Brie can be used as a substitute to the parmesan cheese. It makes it more sophisticated and offsets some of the tangy flavor of the artichoke and sour cream.

To the next one:

Gibna Bayda Dip

1 lb (16 oz) of feta cheese
1 large tomato, diced
2 tablespoons of dried mint leaves
olive oil

1) Empty cheese into a bowl and mix in with diced tomatoes, mix well
2) Add a healthy drizzle of olive oil (between 1-3 tsp), and mix well, blending until cheese reaches a smooth/fine granule consistency
3) Crush mint leaves with hands by rubbing them together and add to the bowl

The quantities above are ideal for a large group of people, about 10-15 servings, if you're serving it alone. Adjust the quantities accordingly depending on how many people you are making it for. If you're not sure, it's probably safe to just make half as much. Also, don't be afraid to experiment...add a little more mint, tomatoes or cheese as you see fit!

One last tip before I go. You should all use www.opentable.com to make reservations to restaurants. Its really a great system that lets you make and cancel reservations to a lot of restaurants in DC online pretty much hassle free. Also, you get "dining points" for each reservation that eventually adds up to discounts, and hey who doesn't like to save on food?!

Welcome!

We have so much ground to cover, so let me begin. First a few of the many great restaurants Tano and I have tried in the city and that we urge you try for a special occasion, over spring break or any time. To be fair, we'll include reviews of our less-favorite restaurants as well and we encourage you to post your own comments/reviews. Agree, disagree, demure...do anything, just go out there and taste DC!

Before I continue, I want to redirect everyone to our own personal source for restaurant reviews: dcfoodies.com. This blog is maintained by a couple of amateur chefs/food critics. Their critiques are usually right on the money, so if you're looking to impress someone, or you feel like rewarding yourself, follow one of their suggestions (or ours!).

So without further ado, here's our list...(or part of it...more to follow). It's been a while since we visited some of them so the reviews may not be very detailed. Now that we have a venue for our reviews, we'll post regularly. It may be nice to visit one of the favorites for our first restaurant trip.

Here's the most recent restaurant we've been too:

Acadiana: New Orleans food with a twist. We went on Valentine's Day and the restaurant had a special 3 course prix-fix menu. These were some of the most generous portions I've ever seen at a "high end" restaurant, so it's well worth the money. You can enjoy Louisiana specialties including gumbo, buttery milk-biscuits served with sweet-and-sour marmalade, a whole roast duck...cheesy grits. Tano had a huge serving of foie gras on special toast that was topped with a tart jelly. Though it looked like a big lump of fat, it tasted great, and its something you don't see that often. The deserts were great too, but if you have to chose among them, I recommend sticking to the chocolate. The restaurant staff is extremely attentive and the restaurant is handsomely decorated and reflects the French influence in New Orleans.

Price: $$$ expensive ($31-$50)

http://www.acadianarestaurant.com

and a kind of hidden little restaurant right on M street:

Kafe Leopold's & Konditorei: Austrian food, well known for their desserts and coffees, though Tano and I also had dinner there. After having visited Vienna two summers ago, I have to say I was a little disappointed with my Wienerschnitzel, as the meat was a little tough. As far as dining experience, the restaurant is a bit spartan, i.e. the seats are not designed for comfort and, as far as memory serves me, there's a lot of fluorescent lighting. Still, it's a unique experience, and if you've never explored Cady's ally right on M Street, it's a pleasant surprise. If you want to get the most bang-for-your buck, however, I'd keep it to dessert and coffee, but get there early because they do run out of Sacher torte as the evening rolls on.

http://www.kafeleopolds.com/

Price: $$ moderate ($18-$30)

But look for reviews of these other restaurants to come.

Viridian, Sette Bello, Circle Bistro, Jaleo, The Iron Gate, Two Amy's, Cafe Milano, Corduroy, Heritage India, Sette, Cafe Bonaparte, Cafe Divan, Indebleu, Paolos, Martin's Tavern, Third Edition, Moby Dick, Peacock Cafe.

Restaurants we still want to try(hopefully with some of you too): Cafe Atlantico, Farrah Olivia, Zaytinya, Teatro Goldoni, Ray's the Steaks, Bebo Trattoria, Komi, Fahrenheit, Lima (a new latin-fusion/ceviche bar that just opened up), Russia House and many, many more

Please feel free to comment, we'd love to get feedback!